Various
Little Folks
HARVEST DAYS
Over the cornfield fell the sunlight,
And turned all the stubble to gold,
And 'neath the pale cloud-shades of evening
Deep crimson and purple unrolled.
The gleaners were busily gleaning
The yellow corn scattered around;
The waggons, all heavily laden,
Were tracing with furrows the ground.
The farmer stood lazily viewing
The harvesting in of his wheat,
His daughters were standing beside him,
His faithful dog lay at his feet.
There came by a shy little gleaner,
Flaxen-headed, with eyes bright and blue,
And the farmer smiled down, "Little maiden,
Come here—here's a gleaning for you."
He pulled from the waggon an armful
Of corn; and the gleaner's eyes gleamed:
She dimpled, she flushed, and she curtsied,
Such a great golden treasure it seemed.
"Ay, sowing, and reaping, and harvest,"
The farmer soft spake as she passed,
And he thought of earth's sowing and reaping,
And the harvest that must come at last.
LITTLE MARGARET'S KITCHEN, AND WHAT SHE DID IN IT.—VIII
By Phillis Browne, Author of "A Year's Cookery," "What Girls can Do," &c
When Margaret and Mary entered the kitchen on the day on which the children were to learn how to bake meat, they found Mrs. Herbert already there. As usual, everything was laid ready for them. The meat was on a dish, the tins and various utensils were clean and bright, and there was a clear bright fire, while a general feeling of warmth and comfort pervaded everything, which was very agreeable, as it was a cold day.
"You have cleared out the flues properly and cleaned the oven for us, I hope, cook," said Mrs. Herbert.
"Oh yes, ma'am; it is all as it should be," replied cook, with a satisfied look as she watched Mrs. Herbert open the oven door, glance quickly in all the corners, put her hand inside for a moment to test the heat, then draw it out, and shut the oven door once more.
"That is well," said Mrs. Herbert. "Now remember, children, when you are going to bake meat, the first thing you have to look after is the condition of the oven. If the soot has not been swept away from the back and round about, your oven will not heat satisfactorily, no matter how much coal you pile on the fire; and if the shelves are dirty, that is, if a little syrup from the last pie which was baked in it, or splashes of fat from the last joint, are left to burn on the shelves, the meat will taste unpleasantly, and very likely be indigestible also."
"But we cannot prevent syrup boiling over," said Margaret.
"Perhaps not; but you can scrape off what was spilt before it has time to burn on the shelves, and you can clean out thoroughly, and wash the shelves with weak vinegar and water, to make them fresh and sweet. We very often hear people say they do not like baked meat, because it tastes of the oven."
"Yes, I have often heard them say so," said Margaret.
"Ah! This remark would not be made so frequently as it is if cooks were careful to keep the oven perfectly clean. Cleanliness is most important in all cookery, and never more so than with regard to an oven."
"What is that little iron slide which you pushed in when you opened the oven, mother?" said Margaret.
"It is a ventilator, and is intended to let fresh air into the oven, and to allow the smell of the roasting meat and the fumes which rise from it to escape. I shut it because we are just going to put in the meat, and I wish it to remain shut for about ten minutes, so as to make the oven very hot till the outside is cooked."
"I know what that is for," said Mary, hurriedly: "to harden the outside, and make a case to keep in the juice."
"Quite right, Mary," said Mrs. Herbert, smiling. "In ten minutes, however, we will push the slide out again, and that will admit the fresh air, slightly cool the oven, and allow the fumes to escape. Always recollect, however, that the oven must be hot. We need a good hot oven for roasting meat."
"Cook has put two dripping-tins here," said Margaret. "We do not want two tins."
"Yes, we do. To use two tins is another way of preventing the taste of the oven which is so objectionable. Usually I should use what is called a hot-water tin for baking meat. That is a tin made for the purpose, with a place inside for holding hot water. I shall not do so to-day, however, because I want to show you how to manage when there is no hot-water tin. See, I lay two or three thick sticks in the larger of the two tins, and put the smaller tin inside the other. Then I fill the bottom tin with hot water. I put this small stand in the uppermost tin, and place the meat on this, and then I put the whole affair into the oven."
"But what is the good of it all?" said Margaret.
"This is the good: when the meat has been a little while in the oven, the fat will melt, and will fall into the dripping-tin."
"I know that," said Margaret.
"Well, then, if we were to let the meat lie in the tin, don't you think it would get soaked in fat? Of course it would, and that wouldn't be agreeable."
"And the hot water: what is that for?"
"If we were to leave a tin containing melted dripping in a hot oven it would get brown, burnt, smoky, and disagreeable?"
"But what has the water to do with the fat burning?" persisted Margaret.
"I will try to explain, if you on your part will try to understand something which is difficult to understand. First of all, what is boiling water?"
"It is water which is so hot that it bubbles all over, and steam rises from it."
"Quite so. If we were using a thermometer, and were to put it into water which was bubbling all over, we should find that the silvery line, or mercury, in the thermometer rose until it came to 212°. We might put a hotter fire under the water, but under ordinary circumstances we should never get the mercury higher than 212°. Under extraordinary circumstances, I confess we could get it higher. For instance, if we were at the bottom of a mine, boiling-point would be two degrees higher, and if we were to put some salt in the water, boiling-point would be four degrees higher."
The little girls listened very attentively while Mrs. Herbert was speaking. When she paused, they looked very solemn, and said nothing.
"Fat, on the other hand, can be made very much hotter: more than three times as hot as boiling water. When heat is first applied to fat, it bubbles, but as it gets hotter it becomes still. As it gets hotter and hotter, it remains still, but it turns dark, and smokes, and smells burnt. This is what would happen to our fat in the tin if we were to let it come in contact with the heat of the oven shelf; but you can see that when water, which never rises beyond 212°, is under it, it cannot burn in this way."
"I see that perfectly," said Margaret, joyfully. "I like to be told difficult things when once I understand them. But, mother, will not the water boil away?"
"Yes; we must watch it, and as it does so, we must add fresh boiling water. It would never do to add cold water, because that would make the fat too cool, and would lessen the heat of the oven also."
"We should have to open the door, though, to see how the water was getting on," said Mary. "Would not that be a pity?"
"It would have to be done in any case to baste the meat," said Mrs. Herbert. "Remember, we can no more dispense with basting in baking meat than we can in roasting it before the fire. If we try to do so, our meat will be spoilt. We must baste every quarter of an hour, and to do this we must lift the meat right out of the oven, and shut the door as soon as possible. If we were to baste the meat while it was in the oven, the latter would become cool, and we wish to keep the heat up the whole time. We should be careful also to shut the oven door gently. If we slam it, we shall force some of the hot air out of it."
"I never saw anything like it," said Margaret. "In cookery there are so many little things to remember."
"That is the case with whatever we learn, my dear little girl, if we try to learn thoroughly. And there is still another point to remember: when we take the meat out of the oven to baste it, we must notice whether it is browner in one part than another, and if it is, we must turn the tin, so that the side which is less cooked may take its turn in going to the hottest part of the oven. You know that one part of the oven is always hotter than another. In the same way, you should turn the meat over once or twice, that it may be equally cooked."
"How long will it have to be in the oven, ma'am?" said Mary.
"If you use the ventilator as I have told you to do, you may follow the same rules in baking meat that would hold good for roasting it: that is, you may allow a quarter of an hour to the pound, and a quarter of an hour over for red meats, and twenty minutes to the pound for white meats. But if the ventilator is not used, the oven would get very hot, and ten minutes to the pound, with ten minutes over, would probably be sufficient, excepting in cases where the meat was very thick and solid."
"And do we make gravy for baked meat in the same way that we make it for roast meat, ma'am?" said Mary.
"Certainly," said Mrs. Herbert.
"Well, I must say," said Margaret, when in course of time the baked meat was dished and set on the table, "that I think baked meat tastes quite as well as roast meat, and it is much less troublesome to cook."
"I do not agree with you, Margaret," replied her mother. "I do not consider baked meat is equal to roast meat. Nevertheless, if it is carefully cooked, if the ventilator is left open, and if the meat is well basted, there is not much difference between the two, and certainly baking is a very convenient mode of dressing meat. Besides this, it is a way which nine people out of every ten must adopt; they have no choice in the matter. Therefore, I hope you will try to remember what I have told you about baking."
"Indeed we will," said both the children.
(To be continued.)
A Harvest Song
Words by George Davies
Music by J. M. Bentley, Mus. Doc
1. With the set-ting of the sun All the work is near-ly done,
And the last up-lift-ed sheaf Brings the toil-ers sweet re-lief.
2. Down the nar-row coun-try lane Trails the hea-vy-la-den wain;
Men and wo-men, old and young, Singing loud their sim-ple song.
3. Now the barn the corn re-ceives—Piled up high the gold-en sheaves;
While the jol-ly reap-ers sing Till the ve-ry raft-ers ring.
Repeat in Chorus.
Greet the reap-ers as they come With a wel-come har-vest-home!
WAITING FOR FATHER
Father's boat comes sailing,
Sailing from the west;
On the shore stand watching
Those who love him best.
Blooms the gorse so golden
On the breezy down,
Comes a sound of joy-bells
From the busy town.
In the fisher's cottage
Mother's work is done,
Through the open window
Streams the sinking sun.
Cheerily the kettle
Sings upon the fire,
Ticks the old clock loudly,
Creep the shadows higher.
Just now, in the gloaming,
When the boat is in,
And the fish are counted
With a merry din,
All those five together
Up the cliff will come,
Peacefully and gladly,
To their cosy home.
STORIES TOLD IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
By Edwin Hodder ("Old Merry")
II.—THE CORONATIONS IN THE ABBEY
Come with me now inside the Abbey. We take off our hats here with great reverence, for we are not only in the House of God, but in the midst of the memorials of some of the most gifted of our countrymen. It is Poet's Corner. But we will not linger here; I want you to come right away into the chapel of Edward the Confessor, and as we pass along picture to yourselves how the Abbey looked on Coronation days, when the light from the great stained glass windows fell upon crowds of brave men and fair women, all robed in costumes of state to see the crown of England placed upon a monarch's head. You must try and imagine the moment when, as the Coronation rubric has it, "the Dean of Westminster bringeth the crown, and the Archbishop taking it of him, putteth it reverently upon the Queen's head. At the sight whereof the people with loud and repeated shouts cry, 'God save the Queen!' and trumpets sound, and by a signal given the great guns at the Tower are shot off."
Well, now we are in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, and I see you all look at that chair standing by the screen. It is well worth looking at, for it is doubtful whether there is any curiosity in all England to compare with it in interest. It is King Edward's chair, upon which English monarchs have been crowned for many centuries, and while we stand near it, I shall tell you very briefly about the crowning of some of our kings and queens.
For more than 800 years the coronations of English monarchs have regularly taken place in Westminster Abbey. Duke William of Normandy claimed the throne as lawful successor of Edward the Confessor, and upon the Confessor's gravestone the burly Norman stood to receive the crown of England. There were two nations represented in the throng assembled here that day. Godfrey, Bishop of Coutances, made a speech in French, Alred, Archbishop of York, spoke in English, and then the crowd, some in French and some in English, hailed William the Conqueror as their king. While this was going on inside the Abbey the Norman cavalry were without sitting on their war-horses, ready to quell any disturbance should it arise. They had not long to wait. It seems that they were not aware that their leader was to go through the form of receiving by popular vote the crown which he had already won by his sword, and when they heard the excited shouting inside the building they thought something had gone wrong, and so they set fire to the gates of the Abbey. Then the crowd inside the building were sure there was something wrong without, and they rushed out, only to be trodden down by the Norman horse-hoofs. Only monks and prelates remained within, and the ceremony of coronation was hurried through, while William, for the first time in his life, it is said, trembled from head to foot; and so ended the first coronation in the Abbey of which we have any authentic information.
Nothing of importance marks the coronation of William Rufus. When he perished in the New Forest, within four days Henry I. was in the Abbey claiming the crown, and making all sorts of promises in order to get the thing done speedily. So he was crowned by the Bishop of London, being in too great a hurry to wait for the arrival of either of the archbishops, who were away from London.
In those days, when times were troublous, kings were not so anxious to have throngs of people in fine dresses, and specially composed music and all that sort of thing. They only wanted men with good swords, and as much speed in being crowned as possible, for "delays were dangerous." Stephen was almost as prompt as his predecessor; Henry ate his supper of lampreys on December the 1st, and Stephen was crowned on St. Stephen's Day, December 26th, 1135. At the next coronation, that of Henry II., Norman and Saxon rejoiced together at the prospect of an era of peace. Prince Henry, son of Henry II., was crowned during his father's lifetime, on June 14th, 1170. At the coronation banquet, when his father stood behind him, the Prince remarked, "The son of an earl may well wait on the son of a king." The event took place during the height of the quarrel between Henry II. and Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose right it was to put the crown on the royal head. Accordingly Becket excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the assistant bishops who had officiated on the occasion. This led to the murder of Becket, with disastrous consequences too numerous for me to allude to here.
At the coronation of Richard I. there was a grand array of nobles and prelates, who came with the king from his palace to the Abbey and witnessed the ceremony. Ill omens attended the occasion; a bat fluttered round and round the throne at mid-day, and at night (they say) there was a peal upon the bells, of which no one could give an explanation. But the day was also marked by real horrors. From superstitious fears the Jews had been forbidden to witness the ceremony. But at the banquet some of them were discovered amongst the bystanders. They were at once beaten almost to death. The mob began plundering the Jews' houses, and murdering the inmates, and at York and other cities similar scenes quickly followed.
At John's coronation the custom began of having the canopy over the king's head carried by the five Barons of the Cinque Ports. This was in return for their aid to John in his frequent voyages. When Henry III. succeeded, Westminster was in the hands of Prince Louis of France, "the Dauphin" of Shakespeare's play. The king was accordingly crowned at Winchester; but he had a second coronation in Westminster Abbey, on May 17, 1220, having on the previous day laid the foundation-stone of his Lady Chapel, which was to be the germ of an entirely new edifice. All previous coronations were said to be outdone by the feasting and joviality on this occasion.
There was high rejoicing when Edward I. came back from the Holy Land, two years after his accession, and was crowned in company with his beloved Eleanor, the first royal couple who were crowned in the Abbey together. Alexander III. of Scotland did homage on the following day, and in his honour 500 great horses were let loose in the crowd for any persons to catch and keep that could.
Edward I. brought from Scotland the noted stone upon which for centuries the Scottish monarchs had been installed, and had it placed in this oaken chair which still covers it. According to tradition, this stone was the one on which Jacob slept at Bethel, and which by a series of remarkable adventures had been transported successively to Egypt, Sicily, Spain, and Ireland. In Ireland they say it stood on the hill of Tara, and that upon it were enthroned the ancient Irish kings. Fergus, founder of the Scottish monarchy, took the stone to Dunstaffnage Castle, and Kenneth II. (here we get hold of historic fact) placed it at Scone in the ninth century. Wherever it may have wandered, it is unquestionably a piece of sandstone from the western coasts of Scotland, and is most probably (says Stanley) the stony pillow of St. Columba, on which his dying head was laid in the Abbey of Iona. On this stone the reign of every English monarch from Edward I. to Victoria has been inaugurated. Only once has it been taken out of the Abbey, and that was for Oliver Cromwell to be installed upon it as Lord Protector in Westminster Hall.
At the coronation of Edward II. the crown was carried by Piers Gaveston, the unworthy favourite whom it had been the dying wish of Edward I. to have excluded from the court. In 1327, Edward III. (by consent of his deposed father) was crowned whilst his mother Isabella, "the she-wolf of France" (as Gray calls her), pretended to weep all through the ceremony. Of the coronation of Richard II. full details are preserved in the "Liber Regalis," a book drawn up by Abbot Littlington, and ever since carefully preserved by the Abbots and Deans, as it sets forth the order which has been observed in all subsequent ceremonials. Proceedings commenced with a grand procession through the city from the Tower, a custom which was kept up till the time of Charles I. The young king rode bareheaded, and was escorted by a body of knights, created for the occasion, and who, from the bath they took in company before assuming their armour, were styled the Knights of the Bath. The young king was taken out fainting from the long ceremonial just as Sir John Dymote, as champion, rode up to the Abbey gates on his charger, to challenge any who dared to dispute the royal succession. It is the first time we hear of the Champion; but it was an age of knightly revivals, and this was probably one of them.
We next see Henry IV. and Henry V. successively installed on the Stone of Scone; and then comes Henry VI., a child of nine, "beholding all the people about sadly and wisely;" his queen, Margaret of Anjou, was crowned here fourteen years afterwards. The coronation of Edward IV. presents no particular feature of interest. For that of Edward V. all was ready, robes for the guests, provisions for the banquet. But the Tower beheld the "midnight murder" of the only English monarch who never wore the crown. Then with splendid ceremonial Richard III. tried to cover the defects of his title. Six thousand gentlemen rode with him to Westminster Hall on June 26th, 1483, and a few days afterwards there was a very grand procession to the Abbey, when Richard and his wife were anointed King and Queen of England. Amongst the Queen's train was Margaret of Richmond, little dreaming that within three years her son should be crowned here as Henry VII. But this monarch's real coronation had already taken place, when the crown of England was found in the hawthorn bush on Bosworth Field, and placed on Richmond's head by Lord Stanley. The public ceremonial was only a poor display. Not so the next event of this character, when Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon were crowned with great splendour, and when for the last time a Roman Catholic Archbishop performed the ceremony. Anne Boleyn's coronation (commemorated by Shakespeare) was a noticeable one, and Cranmer, fresh from sentencing Catherine, performed the ceremony.
Edward VI. came to the Abbey, now a Cathedral, amidst much curious pageantry, and for the first time a Bible was presented to the sovereign.... Mary's procession to the Abbey is signalised by the exploits of a Dutchman, who sat astride on the weathercock of St. Paul's five hundred feet in the air, as the Queen passed. The two Archbishops and the Bishop of London were all in the Tower, so Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, put the crown on Mary's head. On Jan. 14th, 1559, London was wild with joy, as Elizabeth passed from the Tower to the Abbey. The women flung flowers into her lap, groups of children sang welcomes, even old men wept for gladness. The Bishop of Carlisle crowned the Queen.
James I. was crowned in the time of the Plague, so there was no procession. There was a slight hitch because his wife refused the sacrament. She had "changed once from Lutheran to Presbyterian, and that was enough." The coronation of Charles I. was marked by a slight earthquake shock. This was not the only bad omen. The dove of gold on the staff of Edward the Confessor had been broken, none knew how, and had to be replaced. Oliver Cromwell did not venture on a ceremony in the Abbey; he was enthroned, as I have already said, in Westminster Hall.
At the Restoration, Charles II. was crowned "with the greatest solemnity and glory," as the old historian says. The Regalia was all new, to replace that which had been lost during the Commonwealth. The crown was placed on the king's head by the weak and aged Archbishop Juxon, who had attended Charles I. on the scaffold. At the coronation of James II., a hundred thousand pounds were spent over the Queen's robes and jewels, and the procession was omitted to save expense, much to the wrath of the Londoners. As the crown was placed on James's head, it tottered and would have fallen, but for the Keeper of the Robes, who held it up.
The next coronation, that of William and Mary, was delayed two hours by the receipt of the news that James II. had just landed in Ireland. The Queen, being very short, had to be lifted into the chair of state. When girt with the sword and invested with crown and sceptre, the Princess Anne, who stood near her, said, "Madame, I pity your fatigue." The Queen sharply replied, "A crown, sister, is not so heavy as it seems." When the King came to make the usual offering, he found he had no money with him, and had to borrow twenty guineas from a nobleman. Anne was suffering from gout when her turn came to be crowned, and she had to be carried to the Abbey. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, acted as Lord High Chamberlain. At the coronation of George I., the king knew no English and his ministers knew no German, but they all knew Latin imperfectly, and everything had to be explained to the monarch in that language. The crowning of George II. presents no particular feature of interest; that of George III. was a splendid show, and was marked by a curious incident. Amongst the witnesses was Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, who had been staying in London under the name of Mr. Brown, and had managed to procure admission to the scene of his rival's triumph. George the Fourth's coronation was a splendid ceremony; but the portly monarch found it very exhausting, and whilst the peers were doing homage in succession, he used up pocket-handkerchiefs innumerable in wiping his streaming face, handing them when done with to the Archbishop of Canterbury. His unfortunate Queen, Caroline, had vainly tried to be present at the ceremony, but was repulsed at each of the doors she attempted to enter, and had to drive away discomfited. William IV., to please the political reformers of the period, wanted to dispense with a coronation altogether, and the procession and banquet were omitted. Our present gracious Queen was crowned in the Abbey, in the flower of her youth, in June, 1838, and the ancient building was crowded with all that was eminent in the land as the crown was placed upon the girlish head of the illustrious lady who for nearly half a century has worn it so faithfully and so well.